Mentalist Episode Tag: Red is the New Black, 4x13
by Donnamour1969
Summary: Lisbon deals with Jane leaving the scene of the crime. MAJOR SPOILERS! Don't read unless you've seen 4x13, trust me. Rated T for language.


A/N: Another shocker, eh? Well, I don't know if my instant take on this is correct, and of course future episodes will tell (I hope), but here's my initial surmise. I hope it makes a little sense. The rest of the episode was actually a little boring for me, and the Rigsby daddy reveal disappointing. I hope there is more drama to come with that later (See my wishful thinking tag for "My Bloody Valentine.") A reader for one of my previous tags said that the Red John episodes need to just focus on that case, because if you add another secondary case, or make RJ secondary, RJ is short-changed. I agree, and it especially shows that here. But anyway, here's more attention to Red John in my tag. I hope you like it.

**Episode Tag: Red is the New Black**

Jane left alone in his Citroen, having no need to stay at that travesty of a crime scene. Lisbon was obligated to stay, to help Darcy try to make sense of everything, but the moment she realized Jane was gone, she pulled out her phone and took refuge behind a tree in Rosalind Harker's front yard.

"I'm sorry, Lisbon," he said the moment he picked up.

"You can't leave me here to try to explain this all away by myself. Get the hell back here-"

"You were right," he interrupted succinctly.

"What?"  
>"He saw my covering for him with Panzer as an invitation. He sees us now as partners in crime."<p>

"What?" she repeated, looking around nervously lest someone hear her frantic outburst.

Two miles down the road, Jane pulled over into a convenience store parking lot. He killed the engine and leaned back against his chair, his mouth trying to keep up with his racing thoughts.

"No bloody face on the wall, Lisbon. He left Rosalind alive. He's covering for us both now."

Lisbon peeped behind the tree at the now well-lit home of Roy Tagliaferro's blind girlfriend. She tried desperately to make the connections Jane was making, to compete with his sharp mind. She froze as his meaning hit her like a blow to the stomach.

"He had Rosalind tell you he could clear everything up, lured us all here to show us…"

"That Roy might be a murderer, but he wasn't Red John," Jane finished for her impatiently. "And I'm betting when they unwrap the present of that poor morgue attendant, the wounds will be nothing like Red John's."

"But why else would that attendant be killed, Jane? It only makes sense that Red John would have killed him. Darcy has even more reason to believe Roy is Red John now, and that he is very much alive."

"The real reason he's dead is that he ratted me out, Lisbon, got Darcy suspicious of me and my cover-up. The reason _Rosalind_ is going to give for the murder is the FBI and the CBI have been hounding her for information. She'll tell Darcy that Roy was protecting her, warning them to leave her alone."

"You really think Darcy is going to buy that?"

"I hope to hell she does, Lisbon, for all our sakes."

They both sighed heavily into the phone. Lisbon put her hand over her eyes in emotional agony. "You have to tell her, Jane. You're keeping secrets that help Red John now, you realize that. Covering up his crimes just as he is covering up yours. It's sick…it's making _me_ sick."

"You want out?" Jane asked, heart thumping. "You want me to confess all and go to prison for tampering with evidence, interfering with an investigation, lying to a federal agent? Hell, lying to a jury—"

"No!" She looked back at the house, where a few agents were beginning to flow into the yard. "No," she said again, more softly. "We're in this together, Jane. If you go down, well I'm going down with you, whether I like it now or not."

"I'd protect you."

"I'm in this too deep," she whispered. "There's no going back for me either."

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

"Too late for that too. But if you really feel sorry, you'll get your ass back here and get Darcy to believe that Roy Tagliaferro was not Red John either, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. Please Jane. I don't know how I can handle this alone."

There was silence on the other end of the line as Jane willed his heart to slow, tried to calm the fight or flight response he'd had the moment he realized that Lisbon's dire prediction about Red John was correct. The morgue attendant's death was Red John's RSVP.

"Jane?"

"I'll be there in ten," Jane said solemnly. "Tell Darcy—well, just tell her I needed to drive. To think. It's true, I suppose." _To run _was actually the really truthful infinitive, to escape from a hellish party he wanted no part of, but that he had no choice to attend.

"Thank you," Lisbon was saying.

At that moment, Darcy emerged from the Harker home, looking around for the two missing CBI team members.

"Shit," Lisbon muttered into the phone. "I gotta go. You promise you're coming back?"

"Yes. I'm coming. I'm already working on an explanation for all of this."

_Of course he is, _thought Lisbon almost humorously.

Darcy saw her then, met Lisbon's stricken eyes. Lisbon tried to relax her face as the FBI agent approached. She ended the call and pocketed her phone.

"Needed some fresh air, Agent Lisbon?" Darcy asked, though her suspicions were clear in her voice.

"Yeah. It was kind of stuffy in there," she said lamely.

"Uh-huh. Where's Patrick?"

"He'll be back in a few minutes. I guess he needed to escape a minute too."

"Trying to formulate an explanation for all this, I suppose," said Darcy wryly, unknowingly echoing Jane's words.

"Sometimes he thinks better when he drives," Lisbon lied smoothly. "This was a lot for him to take in."

"For all of us," Darcy agreed.

The women regarded each other, unspoken words hanging between them, but neither of them prepared to voice any of them.

"So what's your take on this, Agent Lisbon?" Darcy asked after a moment of tense silence.

"Looks like Roy Tagliaferro killed another innocent victim."

"Yes, that's exactly what it looks like. But looks, as you know, can be deceiving, can't they?"

"Yes," Lisbon replied, her eyes straying to the street, willing the occupant of the familiar blue Citroen to ride once again to her rescue.

A/N: Short, I know. I'd love to hear the other theories you all must have about this, or how you think Jane is going to get out of this mess. My other idea was that Red John was getting back at Jane, by getting him into this predicament with Darcy, forcing him to admit he'd been lying or mistaken. Also, RJ must have realized Jane foiled him again with Darcy, and this is his way to insure she's back on the case, and that the world knows for sure RJ is still out there. I'm sure that's the most likely scenario the writers will take, but I chose to go another route here, thinking it might make a more interesting tag. I'll probably be proven wrong, but I felt like writing this down before I forgot my idea, so here it is. Let me know your own thoughts!

P.S.: I'm still working on the next chapter of "Fire With Fire." It should be up in the next couple of days. I hope to see you then! Thanks for reading!


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